


Fire

by Beth Harker (chiana606), chiana606



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 02:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3918724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/Beth%20Harker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/chiana606
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is destroyed in a burst of flame.  When David's tenement burns down and takes his family with it, he is left with nothing but the other newsies to keep him afloat.  Javid hurt/comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been significantly revised from the version that I have been posting on my icouldwritebooks / david-jacobs-would tumblrs. Thanks to everyone who gave me encouragement as I was writing this fic, especially to icamelatetothenewsiesparty who helped me by RPing the first couple of chapters, and jackkellystories for letting me ramble on about the later chapters to her.

Jack watched the flames rip across the sky. Just in front of him, David Jacobs stood as still as a statue, staring at the inferno with an upturned face and tight shoulders. When Jack tried to touch David, the other boy jerked away as if burned. There was no pressing it any further. Jack had this horrible feeling that David would turn around to look at him, only there would be nothing there, just emptiness in the place of his well-known features. That’s how things went in nightmares.

There was no reason in the world why Jack should have to deal with any of this. He didn’t have a family. Even the Jacobses hadn’t really been his family. A lifetime without having anyone to look out for him should’ve robbed him of the ability to feel grief for the ones who had tried and been unlucky. And as for David... Jack didn't know if he wanted to grab him and flee the scene, if he wanted to get him somewhere safe, or if he wanted to play the coward and run away on his own, to go somewhere where nobody could tie him down to the wake of this disaster.

His stomach churned. Jack kept his mouth clamped shut, afraid that he was going to be sick. 

“Do you have a place to stay tonight, son?” asked a uniformed police officer, appearing at David's side. It was a practical question. He seemed ready to pull David away, but David spun around quickly to look at Jack.

David was pale, his eyes blank. He opened his mouth once, then closed it. Jack didn’t know what was worse – that everything David had ever known had been destroyed in a single blaze, or that the "walking mouth" seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Maybe the worst thing was that Jack wanted to look away. He couldn’t do that, but he sure as hell wanted to. 

For a minute both boys were utterly silent. Jack looked the policeman over, trying, from force of old habit, to gage whether he was friend or foe, not that it mattered much. Bulls were rarely of any use, even when they were on your side. Jack put his arm around David's shoulder, pulling him in closer. This time David let him.

“Yeah." Jack kept his eyes warily on the bull. “He’s got a place.” 

Jack winced when the officer patted him on the back. David was watching the policeman’s hand as if it was some kind of exotic bird. It was eerie seeing him like that.

“If there’s a place to go,” said the police officer, “Maybe you two boys ought to think about going there.” 

“But it isn’t finished?” David said in a quiet voice, that might have been meant only for Jack. The frame of the building where David had lived was still smoldering, and flames peeked out here and there in the places where the fire hadn't been put out. Jack thought it looked like they were playing a game,the devil’s very own brand of hide-and-seek. 

“It's as finished as it's going to be. You boys really better clear on out. Won't do you any good to stand watch," the officer’s voice was the gentlest Jack had ever heard from somebody in his line of work, but Jack didn't think he deserved any say in whether they stuck around or not.

There were some people being pulled out of the building, from the part where the fire hadn’t hit the hardest, but that wasn’t Dave’s part. Jack knew where David had lived so well that he could see it clearly now, even when it wasn’t there and… that was just it, it wasn’t there anymore. Even if somehow something got pulled out of Dave’s old house, Jack figured he shouldn’t be there to see it, and he also figured his judgement was better than some stupid copper's. He knew David. He knew this place. He knew they had to leave, but it wasn't because some idiot police officer had told them so. 

“Come on Dave, we can come back tomorrow, if you need to.” Jack pulled at David’s shoulder, trying to lead him away from a scene that nobody should have to witness, and was surprised and vaguely disconcerted that he came along without a fight.

“He’ll be at the newsboys’ lodging house on Duane Street,” Jack called over his shoulder at the policeman, not that he had any reason to. It didn’t matter if anybody knew where David went anymore. Surely there was nobody left to come looking for him. The blaze behind Jack lit up the sky, and warmed his back. It had already dried out his eyes. Jack led David away from it.

———-

David was shivering uncontrollably before they’d made it halfway to the lodging house. He understood what had happened in a general sense, but the details didn’t seem to add up. He thought of Les with his sword, and how scared he must have been. He thought of how the weather was warm for October, and wondered why he should be so cold. His mama had refused to let him out of the house without his coat, and he'd rolled his eyes at her. Jack’s arms were almost painfully tight around David’s shoulder. David had this feeling that if Jack let go of him now he would be dead, since apparently everybody else was. His teeth chattered. Jack looked faraway and stern. It was dark and very hard to keep track of where they were going, but maybe Jack was doing that for him.

“It’s strange that they don’t want to chase you,” David said, his mind seizing on a thought. His voice was hoarse, but it was something of a relief to find that it worked under his command. “The police I mean.”

“I ain’t in trouble no more, remember?”

There was something off about Jack’s eyes. David looked down at the pavement. 

“Yeah. No. I know that. It’s just strange. Maybe I am.” 

“You ain’t in trouble, Dave.” Jack forced out a sound that resembled a laugh. “I can’t see you ever having reason to run from no bulls.” 

That hadn’t been what David had meant, but he couldn’t bring himself to fight passed the lump in his throat and explain things to Jack. He just knew that he was in trouble. He was in hell. Everything was wrong. Jack pulled him into an alleyway. 

“Look,” Jack said. “Before we get there do you need to something? Do you need to talk, or cry, or anything like that? Them guys, they’re gonna have questions…” 

David shook his head. Jack looked frustrated, but David barely even cared. He was trying to make his breathing more normal. His heart was thudding in his ear, and though he was pretty certain that he wasn’t sick, he’d never felt more ill in his life. 

“I can’t stay in the lodging house,” David said finally, his voice coming out in a rush. “I don’t have four cents. I didn’t bring more than I needed for dinner when we went out tonight. I thought there was no point in carrying extra money.” 

If David hadn’t been out eating with Jack at Tibby’s tonight, he would have been stuck in the blaze with the rest of his family. 

Maybe that was why Jack kissed David on the lips, in a hard, sudden gesture that was too intense to be meant for comfort. It felt hallucinatory, almost, the chapped firmness of Jack's mouth on his, the way his head hit the back of the wall and made him dizzy. David didn't know. He just didn't know. His legs felt so weak that he was sure he would have collapsed had the wall not been against his back. 

“Ain’t you gonna say anything?” Jack asked. His voice cracked. He looked so young, but then again, neither of them were really old.

David shook his head. His trembling had gotten worse, if that was even possible. Jack leaned in like he might kiss him again, and then seemed to think better of it. He backed up, just a little. His hands were on Davids elbows.

“I feel sick,” David said. He swallowed hard, his throat burning. “Jack, I need help. I feel so sick. I feel really sick.” 

“Okay,” Jack said slowly, “You going to puke?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Jack nodded. His hands had moved to David’s neck now, fingers stroking at the skin there. David closed his eyes and stood completely still for several minutes. 

“Come on,” Jack said, when it became evident that nothing more was going to happen here. “I got your four cents. Let's go."

 

\-------------


	2. Chapter 2

Back in the lodging house, David signed into Kloppman’s book with shaky hands that hardly seemed equal to the task, and spent most of the evening watching the poker game. 

“You can play,” David told Jack, when Racetrack acknowledged the two of them, and asked whether or not they wanted to be dealt in. David looked at Jack as if he’d wanted him to get lost in the game, and Jack could sort of understand that. Sometimes when things happened you needed time with your own mind to figure out what to do next and where to go. David touched Jack’s back to push him towards the crowd of boys, and took a seat in the corner, where he was near enough to see the game and be close to the others, but far enough away to make it clear that he wasn’t joining in. 

Jack’s mind wasn’t on the game. He was thinking about Sarah, actually, and how normal things seemed. He could almost pretend that he’d go to see her tomorrow, and ask her what to do with her brother. Sarah was… had been… good at knowing that kind of stuff. 

In the end David ended up costing Jack a lot more than those four cents he’d spent making sure he’d have a a place to sleep. Jack lost twelve in the game. The thing was, David did seem to be watching. His eyes were dull, but they stayed fixed on the cards, even as the night got later and David’s tense posture changed slowly to something slumped and exhausted. 

“You going home soon, Dave?” Mush asked as they started to clean up the cards. 

Racetrack chuckled, “Nah, he’s moving in. Past three in the morning. Might as well at this point.” 

Every word and every laugh felt like a punch in the stomach to Jack. The guys didn't know, but that didn't stop Jack for feeling angry with them. Mush shot Jack and David a questioning look, but Racetrack was already crowing about his winnings, and making sure that everybody paid up. Jack gave Racetrack his hard earned cash, and grabbed onto David's shirt to pull him into a standing position.

“Bed time,” Jack said. The forced brightness of the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

David had only slept at the lodging house once, and it had been during the summer, when beds were usually more plentiful. There weren’t any extra ones tonight.

“You’re gonna have to bunk with me,” Jack explained. “Nowhere else to go.” 

David only nodded. Jack kept his hands on David’s back, letting him climb up first. He wasn’t sure why he did it. Probably Dave could get up on his own, but Jack could feel him getting further and further away, like he might float off if he let go. 

He'd kissed David back in the alleyway. It was as Jack was lying down next to David that the realization came flooding in. He hadn’t even thought about it up until now, but he'd done it, it was true. Stupid of him. He tried to remember what that had felt like, and couldn’t, even though it hadn’t been that long ago. Terrible like everything else, more likely than not. 

Jack could smell the fire in David’s hair. 

Neither of them needed Kloppman’s wakeup call that morning. At least the poker game had lasted long enough that they had only had to lie there in silence for a short time before dawn granted them its reprieve.

When Jack made sure that David got his scrap of bread from the nuns, Mush wasn’t the only one who looked. Even David looked at it strangely.   
“Eat it,” Jack whispered, insofar as he’d ever been able to whisper. Probably the dozen boys nearest to them could hear it loud and clear, which was a shame, since Jack was trying to be discreet for once.

David hung back a bit at the distribution center, so Jack did too, with a sudden sinking feeling. Racetrack was the first to get his papers. He looked up from the headline to Dave, and then at Jack, raising his eyebrows in mute question, trying to verify what he thought he was reading. The look was every bit as unsubtle as Jack’s whispering had been, but Jack figured Racetrack was probably trying too. 

Mush was more direct, “Dave, the headline’s about your…”

Mush took one look at David and Jack, before trailing off sympathetically, but the pandemonium had already started. Most of the guys knew where David lived, and all of them knew that he hadn’t been selling for weeks. There was a lot of shouting and guys asking questions, trying to verify what they already knew. Jack heard Les’s name pop up several times, especially from some of the younger kids who had been friends with him. Blink said something about Sarah. 

“Where’s Les?” Snipeshooter asked, turning to Jack and David, his voice loud enough to be heard over the din. Racetrack shoved him so hard that when Boots tried to keep him from toppling over, he ended up going down with him instead. 

David watched everybody, his hands clenched at his sides. Jack himself was wishing that the ground would swallow him up so he didn’t have to have this conversation. He could hardly imagine what had to be going through David’s mind. Jack wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and took a few steps towards the group. 

“Hey!” he said, using the same voice that had commanded their attention that summer. “All of you'se listen up! Yeah, it’s his place. If somebody from that building ain’t here, it’s ‘cause they ain’t here. Got it?” 

Jack felt like he was shouting just to drown out the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. The other guys were listening, though. All eyes were fixed on him and Dave. 

Jack stopped for a second, needing to catch his breath. He looked down at his shoes without meaning to. That was a mistake. Suddenly the others were surging around them again, asking the same idiot questions, and Jack wondered why he hung around with a group of fifty fellas who probably didn’t have three brains between the lot of them. 

Tumbler, who had spent a lot of time hanging around with Les, was getting increasingly upset. He kept shouting at the others to tell him what was happening, and wiping at his face in a defensive manner that wasn’t enough to hide the tears standing there. It was pitiful, because he was so tiny, though in a way Jack was jealous of him that he was little enough to get away with that. He tried to look away, but out of the corner of his eye he could see that Skittery had picked him up, and was telling him in a kind but sort of stern voice that they had to ‘a lot to talk about’ as he took him away. Skittery was okay, Jack decided. Mush, Blink, and Racetrack also seemed to have taken it upon themselves to try and shut up the rabble. In another circumstance it might have been interesting to watch, ‘cause it was the first time Jack had ever seen Mush get authoritative on anybody, and Jack could tell that he was trying really hard. Boots managed to get Snipes and some of the little kids aside, and was talking to them in a quiet but animated way. 

“Look,” Jack said, “I don’t wanna talk about it, and I know Dave don’t neither. You wanna know anything, it probably says right there in the article, so get reading.” The mob had more or less already dissolved itself by this point, but Jack figured enough people were listening and enough people would hear to make it worth saying.

“I don’t have money to buy papers,” David told Jack quietly. Jack felt something like annoyance… the first thing David said, and it was something stupid and obvious that Jack had already known and prepared for. The other boys were slowly but surely starting to reform the distribution line, and the old man who sold to them was taking up their pennies in a bewildered way, wondering what had happened. Jack gave David’s shoulder a squeeze, because that might be what David needed, and doing what David needed was important right now. 

“Let’s not sell,” Jack heard himself suggest. “We can take a walk. Catch the afternoon edition, maybe. Don’t ask about money again, alright? I got enough to cover us.” 

It was true, but just barely. Jack had enough cash saved up to make sure they both had a place to sleep for the night, regardless of whether or not they sold. David could eat something later, and maybe Jack could too, as long as neither of them ate much. 

David didn’t answer him, and Jack found himself staring ahead at the distribution line. Race, who was sitting on the steps and reading the paper, let out a low whistle, and nudged Swifty to whisper something to him. Jack realized absently that David’s shoulders had started to shake underneath his arm, and looked over at him just in time to see him pinch the bridge of his nose. 

“Dave?” Jack asked. 

David stiffened, and let out a small gasp like he couldn’t help it.

Shit.

“Okay,” Jack said, trying hard to shake off that far away feeling, like he wasn’t even there. “Okay, come on, Dave, let’s go.” He pulled David in closer to himself, starting to lead him off. Probably better to get him away from the others at least. 

“Hey Jack, do you need us to…” Jack almost jumped at the sound of Blink's voice. He and Mush were both at Jack's side now. Where the hell had they even come from? 

“We’re fine,” Jack said. He sounded angry and he knew it. Blink would figure things out and forgive him for it. Jack continued to drag David away, ducking with him to the first quiet spot between buildings that he found. It wasn’t privacy, but it wasn’t like they were going to do any better.

Jack knew that he shouldn’t release David, but he was feeling dizzy and sick, and like he just wanted to run. Jack liked running. It didn’t fix things, but it always felt like it was going to while he was doing it.

Jack shook his head to clear it, and didn’t run.

“Here, sit down,” he told David, helping him to sit back against the wall before walking slowly a few feet away to the mouth of the alley. It took all of Jack’s effort not to bolt. He could still hear David, who hadn’t given any voice to his tears, but kept letting out these sharp, heavy, rapid gasps, that were just about the most painful sound Jack had ever heard. Occasionally he’d stop for a little while, as if he was trying to control it, but he’d always start up again.

Jack didn’t know what to do. He tried to remember if he’d ever cried like that, and instantly regretted it. He’d cried a couple of times as a little kid, maybe. He’d learned pretty quickly not to. It was hard to remember what had gone wrong. Something about his Pa smacking his mother around, yelling at her for letting their son blubber over a broken toy like some prissy little girl. If Jack needed a guide for how to comfort David, he wasn't going to find it in the unwelcome memories of his own family. He shook his head to try and vanish the thought.  
It was easy to believe that that not crying was lesson that the Jacobses had never taught their kids, and it wasn’t like Jack was going to kick David or yell at him to make him stop, even if Jack really really needed him to, even if kicking him would probably shock him into silence. 

Now Jack was the one who was shaking. He didn’t even think it was because of the fire, or anything that had happened that night. It was because he’d thought about people being hurt, and it’d made him think about hurting David, and the image had been really clear for a minute, and he didn’t like it, and… 

Maybe he should make a speech. Maybe Jack could find something rousing to say, to fix everything. He just had to think. He reached into his pockets for his pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a few puffs before deciding that it was making him feel worse. David was quiet now, but he hadn’t moved. Jack came over, and slid down against the wall next to him. It was a while before Jack felt like he could move beyond that, and even then all he did was grab onto David and pull him close. It was too little, probably, and Jack was damn sure that it was too late, but David let him do it. 

——————

David knew that he ought to get up, but he didn’t want to. Jack, who had been very still for far longer than David would have ever thought him capable of being, had started rubbing his back. Knowing Jack, he was probably restless and needed to move. David didn’t want him to stop. It didn’t fix things, but it was distracting, in a way where he felt like if he concentrated on it enough, it quieted down the other things that were going through his mind.

“We should get back to the lodge,” Jack said too soon, pulling David up with him before he could answer. There was something in Jack’s face that made David feel unaccountably guilty; he wasn’t sure what it was, but it reminded David a little bit about the way Les could look when he was sick or upset, like he was just a little kid who needed to be looked after. David’s head hurt, and he was tired, and he was more thirsty than he could ever remember being, but he didn’t say so. Jack didn’t sling his arms around him on the way back, and it felt like a loss.

Nobody really went to the lodging house during the day. David was pretty sure that the boys weren’t even allowed to be in there before five o’clock. It was still bright and sunny, not even noon yet, when Jack and David arrived. Kloppman nodded to Jack and David when they came in, but didn’t say anything else. He had a copy of that morning’s paper on his desk. 

“You wanna get some sleep?” Jack asked, when they got into the empty bunkroom. 

David shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. He saw Jack flinch at that answer, and realized that maybe he’d have to start knowing. He wanted… part of him did want to sleep, but he wasn’t sure that he could. He wanted to get a glass of water, but even though he’d been to the lodging house millions of times, he wasn’t sure where the glasses were kept, and the idea of seeking one out, filling it up, and drinking it seemed monumentally exhausting. He could tell Jack, maybe, about funereal traditions, and how one was supposed to sit with the dead for ten days to mourn them, but he was afraid that that would make Jack worried. David knew that he couldn’t sit with the dead, because there were no bodies and he didn’t have ten days. He just wished he could talk about it. 

Jack was staring at him, so David climbed up onto Jack’s bunk and lay down facing the wall. He felt Jack follow a second later and sit down next to his back. David didn’t have to look at Jack to know that he was swinging his feet back and forth over the edge. He probably wanted to be pacing, or else wanted to be out of there. Just as David was thinking, with some degree of certainty, that Jack was going to leave soon, Jack lay down next to David and draped his arm over his waist. David stopped staring at the wall, closed his eyes, and tried to get comfortable. He could feel Jack breathing against the back of his head.   
David shifted so that he was face to face with Jack. The other boy looked surprised, as though David had just showed up in some unexpected place when he was supposed to be far away. 

David wasn’t sure if he’d been thinking, since the thing happened, with the fire. It was more like ideas were just weaving, uninvited, in and out of his head. There was something about Jack’s bunk that felt like being surrounded by him. Even before David had turned around, the pillow he’d been lying against had smelled like Jack. 

David felt Jack place his hand on his cheek. They’d kissed last night, David remembered. His heart pounded with a terror that was somehow much more bearable than anything else he’d felt all day. He leaned in so that their lips could touch for the second time.

Jack pulled away. For a split second David thought he’d made an awful mistake, but Jack didn’t seem angry or disgusted, just questioning. David could feel heat flooding his face, and the sudden realization that he was blushing almost made him laugh. It just seemed… normal…mildly embarrassing, sure, but normal, like something that could happen to a functional human creature who had just kissed his best friend. It was more than that of course, and a lot was happening of course but… David didn't know. He wasn’t sure what answers to give Jack. He buried his face against Jack’s neck. The more he thought about things, the more they seemed beyond his comprehension. 

“Dave,” Jack murmured. “Hey, Davey…”

Jack didn’t say anything else right away, but stroked David’s hair for several minutes before leaning back to look at him.

“Hey,” Jack said again. “We don’t gotta do that if you don’t wanna.” 

“Is it alright to?” David asked. He wasn't sure whether he was asking because he wanted to kiss Jack some more, or because he just wanted to know if he was allowed. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. Kissing Jack was engrossing. It didn't leave room for much else.

Jack barked out a laugh. Before David had time to get annoyed, though, or demand to know what Jack found so funny, Jack's lips were on his again. The kiss was sharper this time, and more certain. David didn’t have to worry about as much. He worried instead about what to do with his arms, which were starting to feel increasingly ungainly and in the way. He rested his hand lightly on Jack’s hip, just to have a place to put it. Jack responded by pulling David closer to him, and pushing his tongue against David’s lips so that opening them felt like the most natural thing in the world. 

David wasn’t sure which one of them pulled back first. What he did know was that somehow his fingers were digging into the flesh of Jack’s back through his shirt, and that he felt overwhelmed, but overwhelmed in a way that had shades of something pleasant behind it. He was a little tired, a little afraid, and his wouldn't stop pounding, but there was more going on than that. Jack was smiling. His grin was like something from another lifetime, even though it hadn’t really been such a long time since they’d last laughed, last smiled, last talked together. 

David didn’t want to think about anything that had happened before. He wanted to find something that would make him feel the slightest bit okay, and hold onto that. He was thankful when Jack set to working the edges of his shirt up from where he’d tucked it into his pants, and slipped his hands under it, tracing up his spine. The sensation made him hiss. 

“You like that?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” David said, making the decision as he spoke. “Yeah, I like that.” He could feel the calluses on Jack’s fingers as they made circles on his lower back. David’s breath hitched. 

——

The feeling of David’s warm skin underneath his hands was exactly what Jack needed, he realized. After a day like today, where horrible things happened, and he thought about horrible, evil things, and everything else hurt so much that he wanted to scream… this… this thing where he could just lay there and touch David felt good. 

Jack took his time, working his hands up and down David’s back, noting the ways in which David would respond. It was with some surprise that Jack noticed, a few minutes into it, that David’s breathing, which had started out erratic, was beginning to even out, and his body was starting to grow more relaxed. Jack leaned down to kiss David again, and realized that his eyelids were half shut. 

Dave was exhausted. Of course. 

It wasn’t like Jack could blame him. Jack wasn’t sure if he was trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all, or trying not to breakdown the way that David had earlier. He wondered if he had any right to be happy to have David here, considering what had brought him in. Jack kissed the top of David’s head, and smoothed his shirt back down, trying to cover up his own feelings of guilt as he did so. 

Jack wouldn’t have chosen for this to happen, not ever in a million years. He knew that he’d put everything back the way it had been before if he could, but he didn’t have that power. All he could do was care, and fight, and stay close to David. Sarah Jacobs was gone. Les, and Esther, and Mayer were gone. Jack could only hope some spark of that family was salvageable, for him and David at least.


	3. Chapter 3

The lodging house was dark by the time David woke up again. He blinked sleepily, trying to orient himself. Jack's arm was draped across him, and the other boy's breath was warm against the nape of his neck. For a split second, and with a sinking feeling, he recalled his mother's rule, that he wasn't permitted to stay out past eleven. Even that had been hard to negotiate. Before the summer he'd been expected to be at his home at eight. He hadn't even been allowed to be out on the fire escape later than nine.

David shut his eyes tightly, fingers clenching as though his thoughts were physical things that he could choke to death and forget about. His head was pounding, especially the place right between his eyes. His heart was pounding too. He needed to breathe. 

It was probably very late at night, or else early morning. The bunks around David were full, and everybody was asleep. It was definitely well past eleven. David had pushed things and been at the lodge too late a few times, but he'd never been in it when it was quiet like this.

David tried to get back to sleep, but nothing felt right. He almost wished that the lodging house wasn't so familiar, because it made him feel like he could walk out the door and go home, just like he had so many other nights. Now he felt like he might throw up. Maybe he could wake up Jack, but he wasn't sure what Jack could do about anything, except maybe find some quiet place and kiss him again. Jack was very close. His hand was resting just above David's waist. David covered it with his own, and tried to match Jack's breathing, tried to pay attention to Jack's heartbeat and will his own heart to go at a similar speed. He didn't think he could stand to be awake any more, but every creak and rustle in the room was jarring to him, and then suddenly another pair of eyes was meeting his from across the room. 

Mush gestured to David to come over as soon as he realized that David was watching him. David carefully untangled himself from Jack and climbed down off of the bunk. Mush started to pull on his shoes, so David did the same. It took him a few minutes. His hands were shaking. And damp. He must have been sweating the whole night. Disgusting. Mush went over to Kid Blink's bed, nudging him awake, and by the time that they were both ready to leave the room, David was too. 

They went down the stairs, and when Blink and Mush opened the little window in the lobby to climb out, David followed them. Blink caught him with a steadying hand on his shoulder as he exited, as if he believed that maybe David had never climbed out a window before. Mush closed the glass. 

"So why aren't we using the door?" David whispered. Mush beamed at him.

"I'm real glad you asked us that, Davey." Mush tugged on his arm. He seemed genuinely excited that David had said something. 

"Is something wrong with the door?" David asked. 

"We ain't allowed to use it this time 'a night," Blink explained. "Kloppman ain't said nothin' about the window, and seein' as how the lock's been broken for years and he's never fixed it..." Blink shrugged. The story told itself. Maybe there were certain appearances that the lodging house needed to keep up, but old Kloppman wasn't going to keep a bunch of boys with nothing much going for them aside from their freedom under lock and key.

"You got anything else to ask," Mush encouraged. 

"Yeah. Um... Where are we going?"

"Tavern," said Blink. "Down that way. Great place."

"It's a nice walk," said Mush. "And that one ain't so rough as some of the others. It's quiet. Old fellas mostly. Sometimes they get in a musician on the weekend, then it's lots of fun."

"There's a tuba player comes in once a month. He's my favorite. Mush's too."

"We always gives him a coin."

"Last month I told him how much I liked his playing and he hugged me."

"All tight, like a bear."

David nodded. He didn't know what to say about tuba players. He wished he did. Maybe he'd learn about them later in the month, on some weekend night sitting at a tavern between Mush and Blink, with no rules or anybody to control what he did or where he went. It was beginning to dawn on him that he was sneaking out in the middle of the night, and nobody was going to punish him for it, nobody was going to disapprove. The lodging house stairs had creaked with each step David had taken, yet nobody had thought to stop him from leaving.

Mush and Blink kept talking the whole walk over to the tavern, but David had already lost the thread of the conversation. He tried to keep his eyes on Mush and Blink, so he'd know where he was going. The walk felt long. 

The tavern looked all dark and boarded up, closed and abandoned, but Blink threw open the door with confidence, and there were a few people scattered around inside, old men, like Mush had said. Most of them were scraggly and unkempt. Mush pulled David over to the table, while Blink went to talk with the barkeep and some of the guys surrounding him. Eventually, and after what looked like a series of intense discussions, he came back holding a tarnished metal tray with six bottles and three glasses. 

"You didn't pay," David pointed out. 

Blink grinned, arm around his shoulder, "It's on you!" 

"It's a joke," Mush explained, but that didn't quite diminish the lump that had risen in David's throat. 

"I don't have any money right now," David tried to explain. 

Blink patted him on the shoulder, "Yeah. Well I didn't bring none either, right? See, last time I was here I spent most of a week's pay getting drinks for that asshole up there with the pink suspenders, and now we's even is all." 

He pushed a bottle to Mush, and another to David. It felt heavy in his hands, and he sniffed it doubtfully. It wasn't that he didn't have any idea what beer smelled like, he just wasn't sure if he could stomach the stuff. He hadn't eaten all day. He'd cried. He'd kissed Jack. He'd _fallen asleep_ somewhere in the middle of kissing Jack, then woken up with Jack all curled up around him and followed Blink and Mush out of a window. 

Mush took the bottle from him. "There's a trick to pouring it," he said. "You tilt your glass sideways like this, so it don't fizz over. Look at my hands." Mush's cup had already been filled, David noticed, and so had Blink's. David watched the liquid rise slowly, as Mush tilted it in with great care. He took a sip. 

"It tastes like seltzer, huh?" Mush said. "I didn't like the stuff the first time I tried it, but then Blink told me it tasted like seltzer and bread, and I liked it a whole lot better."

"That's 'cause some of the ingredients is the same as bread," said Blink. "It's like eating bread."

David nodded. He wasn't sure about the seltzer and bread thing, but it was a nicer idea than horse urine, which was what the smell suggested to him. He took another few sips. It wasn't long before Blink and Mush started talking again, and David let them. They didn't seem to be expecting him to say much. David refilled Mush's glass once it was empty, carefully using the technique he'd just been shown. Blink blackmailed somebody into getting them a shot of whiskey, which was watered down and shared between the three of them. 

"You hanging in there?" Blink asked. David could feel the whiskey heating his chest and his face, he had to swallow several times to keep it down. 

"Yeah," David said, when he could talk. "I'm..." He gave a short laugh. "This is interesting. That I can do this. Nobody knows where I am. I could hop a boat out of the country, and it would be fine. Permissible. It wouldn't matter." 

Blink gave David a look that he couldn't quite read.

"You could also stay here," Mush said. He added another splash of water to David's whiskey cup, enough of it so that the liquid was nearly clear. "You could just stay in New York," he continued. "Stay where your friends is."

\----- 

They played a game on the walk home, trying to make newspaper headlines out of the mundane objects they passed. Were street lamps a hoax? Was the grass part of a secret plot hatched by corrupt politicians? The possibilities were endless! For David they didn't include walking in a straight line, but other than that they were endless.

They ran into Jack directly outside the lodging house window. He grabbed on to David's shoulders immediately, looking at him like he might either kiss him or shake him. He pulled him in for a quick hug instead. 

"Where'd you go?" Jack ask. He looked from David, to Blink and Mush, then laughed. "Never mind," he said. He gave David's shirt a tug to get the wrinkles out, smoothed his tie. "I should've guessed. How much did you have? You walking ok?"

"I'm not drunk," David told him.

"And I'm Teddy Roosevelt. This your idea, Mush?"

"It could've been mine." Blink shrugged.

"Or mine," said David. 

Jack poked him in the side. "Right. Yours. Because you're always suggesting everybody go out drinking in the middle of the night. Just the other day Race was telling me how he'd like to see you sober, just once." His hands rested at David's sides. "It wasn't yours, was it?" He asked, and the sudden hint of seriousness in Jacks tone settled somewhere in David's stomach, warm like the whiskey he'd consumed. 

"This one was us," Blink said. Jack just nodded like he'd suspected that. He moved aside, shifting David with him, so that Blink and Mush could get back in through the window. That left David and Jack alone. Jack couldn't seem to keep his hands still. They fussed with the collar of David's shirt, tapped at the nape of his neck. 

"Thought I was gonna have to go searching the whole damn city for you," Jack said,

"I wasn't in the whole city. Just one place."

Jack rolled his eyes, "Yeah, well I was worried about what place it was. There's some places you don't need to go to right now."

"Me too. What I mean is, I'm also worried, so I can empathize there. I can't think of a single thing I'm not worried about."

"Figured as much," Jack sighed. "It's normal I guess. Well, come on, let's worry about brushing your teeth. Kloppman's gonna be climbing those stairs to wake us up any minute."


	4. Chapter 4

Weeks passed in a blur for David. It was difficult to think much. It wasn't that he felt like he was losing his mind, or going mad from grief. There were moments when he felt calm, but even then, his equilibrium wasn't there. It was like the center had been carved out of him. 

There were things that he knew, and things that he noticed. He was sure that whatever fears he might have, starving to death or freezing on the streets needn't be among them. The boys all did their best to support themselves, and there wasn't a man among them that was comfortable with mooching off the others, but there'd been a day when a pickpocket had beat Swifty at his own game, and another when Tumbler had overestimated how much penny candy he could buy with the change in his pockets, and neither of them had found themselves hungry or left out in the cold. 

Many, _many_ things were wrong, but none of them were a matter of being alone. He had the newsies. He always had the newsies.

Mush and Blink got into the habit of dragging David along with them whenever they went somewhere fun. At night, when David had trouble sleeping, they were a godsend. They brought him to see that tuba player, they joked with him, and occasionally they drank together. David quickly got the sense that the two of them were everything to each other. It made them easy to hang around with, because they didn't need anything from David, or expect much out of him. 

Political cartoons were an area of special interest for Skittery, and he was willing to talk about them with whoever wanted to listen, which frequently meant David. He laughed over the good ones, and mocked the bad ones with a sarcasm and merciless awareness that made David think he'd have a good shot at publishing a few of his own if he ever learned how to draw beyond stick figures. He talked about books as well, defensively at first, like he didn't expect David to believe he could read them, and then more enthusiastically. He didn't flinch away from talking about David's old life the way some of the fellows did. He said things like _I suppose you used to have a bookshelf_ and _guess you read that one at school_ as if they meant nothing at all, and if his words made David freeze up some of the time, Skittery had the grace to pretend not to notice.

Crutchy and Race took to suggesting interesting bits of third and fourth page news for David to call out, when the fire that had taken his home remained stubbornly on the front page of the World for more than a week after the event. They were nearly as good at it as Jack was, and even when other news started to make its way front cover again, David came to know that if Crutchy or a Race were suggesting headlines to him, that it probably meant that there was something hidden in the folds of his newspapers that he didn't want to read. 

A couple of old pairs of underdrawers came from Specs. They didn't fit correctly, but they were better than nothing, seeing as how David had only had the pair he'd been wearing the night of the fire, and couldn't quite seem to get ahead enough to buy any more. In turn, David gave Snipeshooter his tie. He felt silly wearing a tie when everything else he owned was unwashed and falling into disrepair as he worked and slept in it day in and day out, but the younger boy loved it.

Some days David felt that he'd been transported from one family into another, and some days this was enough to make him feel strong, and even happy in fleeting moments. There were other days as well, when he laughed at something and then felt unaccountably angry with himself, like he'd betrayed the people who'd raised him. There were nights passed in tossing, turning and wishing that he'd asked Sarah and Les to go to Tibby's with him that night, wondering if all of this was a punishment for the selfish jealousy that had often caused him to try to drive his siblings away when Jack was around, if only to have the other boy to himself for half an hour. A lot of times, he thought that he'd give anything just to talk to his mama for even five minutes. He wondered if she'd be ashamed of him now. Sometimes when he kissed Jack he thought that he deserved to be dead like the rest of them.

***

On the fifth day after the fire, Jack and David were out selling until past eight o'clock at night. For Jack, this was almost unheard of, but he'd thought that maybe since it was a sunny day and there were two of them, they'd manage to sell two hundred and fifty papes. David had seemed better than he had been up until that point, more awake, with some words to say and some awareness in his eyes, but that had turned out not to be enough. 

"We can sell 'em back," Jack had said, when he noticed how David's steps seemed to be lagging. 

"It's what we worked for this summer." There was something almost like a smile on David's lips, wistful and sort of sweet, that made Jack want to reach out and touch them. "We did that," David said. "It was us."

"Yeah." Jack had reached his arms around David's shoulder. 

"I remembered the selling being easier," David had said. "I'm not complaining. I guess that Les just..."

David trailed off then. Jack pulled him in tighter, and tried to push away the feeling that he'd just been punched in the gut. He wanted to forget about Sarah and Les, before he was as unable to look at David in the face without seeing them. 

"About a couple of days ago..." David started.

"I got nothing to say about it yet," Jack interrupted. "Do you?" He hoped that David didn't, but he felt bad for the way that David kept swallowing, like he was choking on something. 

"Yes," he said at last, and Jack winced. "I wanted to know why we haven't finished what we started in your bed, before I fell asleep the other day."

David's words came out of his mouth in a rapid tumble, and he seemed in that moment to have gone very white and then very red. Jack got the feeling that David had meant to ask him something else, but he couldn't bring himself to pry into what, not now when neither of them were ready to deal with it. 

"You saying you want to finish?" Jack asked instead. A nod from David, and Jack was thankful that he was already wrapped around his friend, because it made it easy for him to surprise him with a light nip on the ear that he knew that the other boy could not have been expecting. David straightened up, alert, and his eyes widened, scanning the night for anybody who might have seen that. 

"Is there a place where we can go?" David asked, with an urgency the effected Jack the way nothing else could have. Jack looked around them. 

"Nobody's out, if we..."

Jack didn't get any further than that. Turned out that 'nobody's out' was all the assurance David needed to push him back against the wall, hard, and press their lips together. David was breathless after, eyes darting this way and that, as he tried to verify that there really hadn't been anybody there to see them. Jack was breathless too, but for a different reason. 

He pulled David in by his vest for another quick kiss, "'Nobody's out' don't mean we can just do it here," Jack warned. He hoped that by speaking this fact out loud, he'd be able to convince himself of it. 

It was another three days before Jack figured out a good place to take David, where they'd have a bit of time, and a bit of hope of not getting picked up by the police for public indecency (along with other things, that carried scarier punishments). It wasn't that Jack had never tempted fate in that way before, but he didn't always trust David to know when he was tempting fate and when he wasn't. David was the smartest person that Jack knew, except for when he got an idea into his head. 

There was a spot, a little alley that a cart had gotten lodged in trying to pass through a month or so back, while the driver was drunk off his ass. David and Jack managed to climb up over it, and then down into the small gap between the wall and its wooden frame. 

It was that night, with his lips on David's neck, that Jack noticed that the scents that had always clung to David when he'd lived at home were gone. There was no soapy smell, no clean linen, no hint on his breath of the cabbage and onion soup that had been his mother's favorite dish. It was this realization, the pain of it and the spark of rebellion at the idea that David might no longer have enough people who cared about him as strongly as he needed to be cared about, that lead Jack to suck harder on the skin just above his collarbone, using his lips and teeth to mark him there.

When Jack was finished, he took a moment to survey what he'd done. David's hair was a mess, his top buttons agape, the evidence left behind by Jack's lips glistening slightly in the low light. He wondered if he ought to end it there, make allowances for David, who was grieving and had probably never done this kind of thing before. David's hands were on his shoulders, his brow furrowed as if he were deliberating something. 

David planted a few more kisses on Jack's lips. To Jack they seemed just a little halting, and just a little cautious, right up until the point where David took hold of Jack's hand and guided it to his thigh, and Jack came to know that David had no intention of being cautious at all.

***

David couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong with him. It had been an entire month since his family and home had burnt away, and he still didn't feel normal. Maybe a few years ago he would have accepted that as the inevitable fate of anybody who had lost a family, but he was an orphan surrounded by orphans now and the others... Well... They were newsies. They played poker at night, and staged sword fights in the morning on the way to work. They took in vaudeville shows, and campaigned for politicians. They boasted and took pride in the work that they did. They were powerful enough to change the very fabric of the city, and they knew it. None of them were moping around feeling sorry for themselves and crying over whatever they'd lost. They were alright. 

David did his best to be alright as well. He'd started having nightmares. There was one, where the flames engulfed Les, making his skin shrivel, blacken, blister and burst with such vividness that David could remember the exact smell and texture of this thing he'd never truly seen, remember them better than he could remember the sound of Les' voice. He woke himself up by vomiting off the side of Jack's bunk. Racetrack, who had the very unfortunate position of sleeping beneath Jack, swore up a storm until Jack told him to shut up. When David tried to apologize Jack told him to shut up too, and then nobody else said anything about it. A few minutes later David went to the sinks in the bathroom, shivering and confused, and tried to get himself cleaned up as well as he could. Jack followed of course. His expression behind David's in the mirror seemed scared, perhaps, or maybe just overwhelmed. 

"Where does Kloppman keep the mop?" David asked quietly.

"Go lie down."

David shook his head, "No. Where is it?"

No other words passed between them that night. Jack gestured to a spot in the corner, and climbed back into bed with a frustrated little sound that was like something between a whine and a growl, and lay there facing away from David as he mopped away his mess.

The next night Racetrack invited him to play cards as if nothing had happened, but David knew that it was Race's way of letting him know they were still friends, since David was too cautious and too low on cash to warrant a special invite into Race's gambling sessions under normal circumstances. None of the others had so much as commented, except for Mush, who had asked him how he was feeling that morning while they'd stood in line at the distribution center, and whispered to him that Blink kept a picture of a 'naked angel' under his pillow to keep bad dreams at bay. 

(David wondered if the picture's powers came from the fact that it was naked, or the fact that it was an angel, but Mush was either unable or unwilling to answer this question.)

From that point on David began to look for evidence that the other Newsies were not as alright, as perfectly _miraculously_ functional as they seemed to be. He wasn't disappointed. 

Blink, who was one of the kindest people David knew, had a hair-trigger temper. It was terrible, and it was hard to tell what would set it off. Snoddy almost got soaked for joking that they could braid the hair under Blink's arms, and Blink snapped at David one morning for looking at his towel the wrong way after getting out of the shower. By the time David had been at the lodging house for three weeks, he was quite sure he'd seen Blink angry with every single newsie in the place who wasn't Mush.

Jack pretended that he was a cowboy. He pretended that his parents were in Santa Fe, and he refused to acknowledge that Francis Sullivan had ever existed. He also pretended that Sarah had joined the circus, apparently, or at least he advocated for David to try out this fantasy. It was all in response to David trying to explain to him that he wasn't sure he could imagine the rest of his life without seeing Sarah again. They were trying to eat together, David pushing his food around his plate because his chest and throat were too tight to let him swallow with any ease, and Jack told David to imagine that Sarah was off traveling the world in a trapeze act. 

"The important thing is that you know she ain't around, and you ain't gonna see her no more," Jack explained, mouth full with his own food. "The exact trappings of it isn't so important. Tell yourself what you want. Could be there's not much difference between being in a circus and hangin' around on cloud playin' harps with the other dead folks, anyways."

If David had known Jack less well, he would have thought that he believed in what he was saying. As things were, Jack was his best friend, and the way he didn't look at David while telling him this said a lot more than any words from him could have done. 

Skittery had his problems as well. He went through entire weeks where he didn't do anything. He'd just decide one day that bathing was too hard, or being around people was too hard, or selling papers was just too damn hard, and then he'd delegate enough of his work to the younger kids to keep from being stuck out on the street, and spend his time lazing around and drinking a lot. Out of all the Newsies, Skittery drank the most, but he hardly ever seemed drunk. 

Itey tried and failed time and time again to make people understand about the life he'd led before coming to America. Everybody liked him, but they also reduced him to jokes about spaghetti noodles and misspoken words, and David got a sense that Itey was aware of that to some degree. 

Snitch was seventeen but he sucked his thumb every night while he was sleeping, and sometimes even when he was awake, if he was worried or stressed. 

Snitch was an interesting one. He cornered David one evening, when he was curled up in Jack's bed reading a trash article about a streaker who had been making her way through the streets of Queens.

"Hey," Snitch said, pulling on David's sleeve to get his attention. "Heya Davey, I don't know that it's my rightful place, but I got a present for you, and something we gotta talk about, man to man."

Snitch looked so serious and sincere that David followed him right away. There was a box by his bed. A lot of the boys had a box or a sack or something like that where they kept their things. Snitch, David observed, had a surprising amount of things. A lot of it was springs - Snitch had a whole assortment of those, large and tiny, some rusted and some newish. There was some other stuff as well, like a braid of hair, brown and curling blond intertwined, and tied together with a bit of ribbon. Snitch took out a crumpled up newspaper, smoothed it carefully, and put it on David's lap.

David's heart sped as if Snitch had just handed him a loaded gun. He thought of fire.

"It's the article. From the night after your place burned down. I noticed you didn't keep it, so I kept it for you. Itey said to wait, and I waited, so here it is."

David nodded. He wasn't sure what he was meant to say. His palms were sweaty. 

"Ya see," Snitch continued, speaking quickly like he felt the need to explain it, "My mom and pop was front page news after they died, and to this day I regret not reading none of it."

"Oh..." David said. He ran his palm over the creases in the paper. "What happened to them? Do you mind me asking that?"

"Yeah! I've been thinking about it, and thinking that maybe we can be pals, and you can ask me any questions that you likes, and I'll tell you honest, because we'se pals," Snitch gave a short laugh, and ruffled David's hair in a way that felt strange to David, because he hadn't fully resigned himself to the idea of him and Snitch as being close pals yet. 

"Anyways," Snitch said. He laughed again, and this time it sounded nervous. "My ma went and kissed another guy, so my dad shot her in the face a couple of times, right at the kitchen table while she was trying to make my baby sister eat her carrots, and he shouldn't've done that, because two wrongs don't make a right, you know."

"Two wrongs don't make a right," David repeated dubiously, more to himself than too Snitch. That seemed to David a rather strange way of putting it, and he was just about ready to say so, when he noticed Snitch chewing on his thumbnail and thought better of it.

"I'm not saying he done right, mind you," Snitched hastened to explain. "I don't think it's right to ever hurt a lady, much less kill 'em, no matter what they does to you."

"Yeah."

It was getting hard to look at Snitch, so David looked down at the article, scanning it for names or anything of interest. The idea that he might own something with his mother's or his father's name printed on it struck him as monumental all of a sudden, as though a few words as evidence to their existence could change everything, but they weren't important enough to warrant special mention among the dozens of families who had been taken that night, and their names weren't there. The article only cited dirtiness and irresponsible smoking habits for the reason behind the fire. David wondered if he should have tried to find his family's remains after the thing happened, if he should have tried to give them some kind of funereal.... If he should have done something beyond latching on to Jack, and avoiding everything else. 

"Thanks for this," David said weakly, unsure of whether or not he really meant it.

Snitch clapped David on the shoulder. "Hey, no problem. That's what friends are for."

David stowed the article away in the bag where Jack kept all of his worldly possessions, and did his best to forget about it.

***

The cart in the alleyway got moved, which meant Jack and David needed to find a new spot.

"You're kidding me." David actually groaned when he saw the change. It was an interesting sound. At least Jack thought it was. 

"Too good to last." Jack shrugged, trying for casual. The time he'd spent anticipating getting David alone made it difficult, but he did his best.

"Well, it isn't like we've ever had anybody walk down here since we started, so..." 

"Irving hall," Jack interrupted. 

David looked doubtful.

"Don't think you can wait that long?" Jack reached over to give David's backside a quick squeeze, because the incredulous look that David got on his face every time Jack did something like that was just about the most hilarious thing that Jack had ever seen. 

"What're you gonna do if your face freezes that way, huh Dave?" Jack teased. 

"Dedicate the rest of my life to getting revenge upon you, since it would be your fault."

Jack's hand was at his side now. David reached over and grasped it tight, just for a few seconds, but warmth flooded Jack at this touch, which somehow felt more intimate than what he'd just done to David. 

"You're an ass," David whispered as he let go.

"Oh, so is that all you think about these days?"

"Jack!"

Jack expected David to leave it there, on that predictable note of consternation, but then he noticed the way that David was biting the inside of his cheek like he was trying not to laugh, and knew that he was in for more. 

"So," David said, trying to sound very serious, and not exactly succeeding, "if I'm the Walking Mouth then you're the walking..."

Jack gave David a playful shove.

"Walking ass," David finished, undeterred, and quite proud of himself for it if the grin he wore was any indication. 

They didn't make it the rest of the way to Irving Hall, but Jack couldn't say he regretted that. 

***  
The bad dreams were getting worse. David didn't get sick again, but he worried that he might, because the things he saw when he closed his eyes were certainly nausea inducing. He didn't think that the other guys would be so nice if he did that a second time. He didn't think Jack would understand. Subsequently, he spent more time thinking about how to avoid that than he did actually sleeping. 

The worry seeped into his daytime life. Sometimes it seemed like his dreams were on the peripheral of his vision while he was out selling papers, out trying to be normal. One Tuesday afternoon he lost an entire hour of selling time leaning against the side of a building, clutching his papers to his chest, and telling himself what an idiot he was while he tried to get enough air into his lungs to call out a headline, to make himself forget he was in a blind panic.

He swore it would never happen again, just as soon as he felt as though he might be able to move. He didn't let himself sit down after. He sold his papers, because going on with that was the same as going on with life. 

The next day found David crumpled against a brick wall, head in his hands as he attempted to analyze what was happening to him. It wasn't that he was seeing things exactly, but he was remembering things in a way that was almost the same as seeing them, and he needed to stop it because it wasn't real, it wasn't a productive use of his time, and most of all because it was terrifying. 

He considered telling Jack that night as he lay next to him in bed, but he didn't. He wondered if he could tell somebody else, maybe Mush or Blink. He wondered if Skittery had the right idea with his trips to the bar and weeklong breaks from humanity, and he wondered if Snitch had the right idea sucking his thumb, but David had already discovered that more than two drinks left him with a headache the next morning, and his hands were too covered with the grime of the New York City streets for him to even consider putting them in his mouth.

For about three days David managed to hang on to some semblance of calm, even with the idea in the back of his mind that whatever was going wrong with him would go wrong again, and he'd humiliate himself in front of Jack and the other boys.

The next time it happened Jack did find him. It was raining, which made the situation all that more ridiculous, because David, in the sloppy New York wetness, could only think of how things had looked when they'd burnt away. 

Jack was there, but David couldn't make sense of it. Maybe he spoke to David before he noticed that something was amiss, and maybe he didn't. Perhaps it had been a joke about the papers not selling themselves. David couldn't say. He closed his eyes because the confusion in Jack's face was too much for him. When Jack tried to kiss him, David pushed him away reflexively. He wasn't sure how he could kiss if he couldn't breath. He wasn't even sure how he could stay alive if he couldn't breath. His heart had sped up like it was honestly trying to kill him. 

Time, on the other hand, was painfully slow, 

David felt Jack carefully remove the newspapers from his arms. He opened his eyes. The papers were on the ground, even though there were puddles everywhere. 

"Don't go," David heard himself say to Jack, who was nearly as pale as he was, but nodded stiffly. 

For what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, Jack watched David helplessly, then he reached out for him, paused. 

"I'm gonna touch you now, that alright?" A nod from David, and Jack gripped his shoulders, then waited. Slowly, like he was trying not to startle him, Jack moved one hand out to cup David's cheek, thumb stroking lightly at the skin there, the way that somebody might calm a dog or a horse. 

David glanced down. He didn't want to throw up or start crying in front of Jack. He needed to keep control. He wasn't sure if he was in control of anything anymore. This whole thing, this idiotic stupid thing, had already cycled into something beyond visions of fire, and he couldn't see the end of it.

"Don't do that," Jack said and winced when David recoiled from the words. "Listen Davey," he went on a little desperately, "You're holding your breath. You're going to pass out if you do that. You gotta stop that, alright?"

David gasped. 

"Alright," Jack said slowly. There was a slight tremor in his hand. "Good. Do that again."

The wetness on David's face wasn't just from the rain any longer. He remembered the last time he'd cried in front of Jack, how it had nearly driven him away. 

Still moving cautiously, Jack wrapped his arms around David where they stood. 

"Try to relax," Jack said. One arm was around David's waist, the other up covering the back of his head. 

It was a while yet before David could calm down entirely, but there was something to be said for realizing once the dust had settled that he was still there, still himself, still living, and still not alone.


	5. Chapter 5

"I don't know what happened," David said. He was sitting next to the wall. They'd been here before, only the last time it hadn't been raining, and it had taken Jack too long to go to David's side. This time he was trying to do things better, even if it meant sitting on wet bricks while the rain soaked him through and turned his papers to muck. 

"Yeah, well I don't know either."

Jack's arm was looped over David's shoulder, keeping him close, but that didn't mean that he knew what to do. He was just glad that David was breathing regular again, and that he'd stopped crying. He tightened his hold on David, and then started going through the possibilities. "So what was it? Did you see something got you spooked? Are you sick?"

David's head went to his hands, and Jack felt bad for talking. His fingers kneaded circles just beneath the collar of David's shirt, in the damp flesh between David's neck and his shoulder blades. 

"Look, Davey," Jack said, once the silence had stretched on too long. "It's alright. Just don't do it again, huh?"

David nodded. Jack moved his hands lower down David's back, in a way that he hoped was soothing. 

"I have a stomachache," David said finally, and Jack was satisfied. No wonder David was acting like this, if he had a stomachache. Sure, Jack had had plenty of those and never panicked quite the way David had, but David was different. He was used to having folks take care of him. Probably he'd held out as long as he could.

"We can go back to the lodge," Jack suggested. "Kloppman won't mind none once I talk him into it. Come on."

David didn't budge, so Jack flopped back down next to him. There wasn't much choice.

"...Dave."

"I don't have a stomachache."

And just like that they were back to square one, with Jack not knowing what else he could possibly do but wait and hope that David told him what was the matter. Jack felt like he was stuck in the worst game of twenty questions he'd ever played in his life, and nothing he asked brought him any closer to finding the source of the problem.

 

"So talk," Jack ordered. "You're good at talking."

Silence. 

Jack wondered if this was his punishment for not handling things better a few weeks ago, when David had had his first breakdown over the loss of his family. Maybe Jack should have gotten over his own stupid problems and done something to fix David then. Maybe everything was getting worse, and it was Jack's fault for not seeing. 

"Come on, Davey." Jack's hand stilled, as he tried and failed to muster up enough gentleness in his voice. "Put that mouth and that brain of yours to use, and tell me what's going on. I can't read your mind. You was fine this morning, so what happened between then and now?"

David, predictably, didn't answer. Jack took his hand away. He wanted to do what was right by David, but it was tough when David didn't give him anything to go off of. He tried to swallow his guilt. He'd dreamed of getting David to himself before the fire, but now that he had as much David as he could ever want, in practically every way he'd ever wanted, things were going to pieces. Maybe it wasn't worth it. 

"Are you tired?" Jack tried, back to asking questions. "You sure your stomach don't hurt?"

David shook his head.

"So it hurts. You have a stomachache."

"I think I'm losing my mind," David said quietly. "I think I'm going crazy."

Jack didn't know what to say to that. He brushed David's hair away from his face, trying to get a better look at him. "How do you figure?"

David exhaled hard against his knees, and Jack hoped that his breathing wasn't about to go all weird again. 

"Sometimes when I think of... What happened... It gets so bad that I can see it."

Jack leaned back against the wall, next to David, and listened.

"I don't know what to do to make it stop, and I can't choose when it's going to happen. It just happens. It feels like having a heart attack. And maybe I shouldn't care whether or not it kills me, all things considered, but I don't want it to."

"Let's go back to the lodging house."

"No. We're not done talking. I just told you what was wrong, and you didn't say anything."

"How'm I supposed to know what to say. You know what, come here..." Jack pulled David in closer, and David let him. He kissed the top of David's head. "How's that for something to say?" Jack asked. 

David nodded, so Jack kissed him again, this time on the lips. 

"We had a crazy kid staying at the lodging house once," Jack said. 

"What happened to him?"

Jack didn't answer. The other guys had nicknamed him Spooky, on account of the ghosts he thought were talking to him. Spooky had been nice enough, and great at playing marbles, but Children's Aid hadn't thought so, and they'd come and picked him up.

"I don't think you're crazy," Jack said. "Just sad."

"How do you know?"

Jack shrugged. He didn't know, really. "Maybe you're only crazy some of the time. Lots 'a guys is like that. Skittery for one. Even Blink. You want I should check in on you more when we're out selling?"

David nodded. He stood up, pushing himself up against the wall. His motions were vague and unsteady, almost as if he was drunk. Jack wondered if he should get him drunk for real later, if that would make him feel better. Jack stood up beside David.

"We going back?" Jack asked.

"Yes."

\--------

Back in the lodging house, David watched as Jack stripped out of his wet clothes, and into a dry set of long underwear. Jack hung his clothes up to dry on the edge of his bunk, but David guessed that they'd still be damp come morning. David shook himself, as if trying to wake up. He'd blanked out and spent too much time staring at Jack, which wasn't unusual all things considered, but now wasn't the time for it. Since David didn't have anything to change into aside from a pair of drawers, he settled for that, and hung up his clothes as Jack had done. The feeling of the cool autumn air left goosebumps across his bare skin, but it was better than being wet.

Jack went into the center of the room, and spread out his arms. "Space," he said, with a desperate little grin. "How often do we get a room meant for thirty people all to ourselves, huh Davey?"

David returned the smile, but his own was wan and tired. He went to the bathroom sink, picked up one of the metal cups that hung near it, filled it with water, and drank. David stood there and drank four cups of water before he felt like he'd had enough. This was a good thing, he told himself. He could remember another time, another return to the lodging house in the middle of the day with only Jack at his side, when he hadn't even known where the cups were kept. Maybe he was going through a spiral of breakdowns and emotions, but at least in some ways it was an upward spiral. He had some idea of how to take care of himself now, if he could keep his mind from unraveling so far that he couldn't do it anymore. 

"I'm okay now," David said, when Jack came up behind him. 

"Good."

Jack kissed the the back of David's neck a few times, and though the sensation made David's skin tingle all over, he didn't have the energy to push it past there. Maybe that was a good thing too. He was starting to understand the nature of his relationship with Jack, and he didn't have to push every kiss and touch to the brink of sensation, because there would be more. 

At least if he hadn't gone and ruined things yet, there would be. 

"I'm sorry," David hardly every apologized, but it seemed like the thing to do now. 

Jack shrugged. "Not like you done it on purpose." He walked a circle around the room, before climbing up to his bunk, and grabbing a book about cowboys to read. David went and got another glass of water. He finished it, then stood in the doorway between the bathroom and the room where the boys slept. He watched Jack, until Jack stopped turning the pages in his book, and David knew he was doing something wrong. Finally, David climbed into bed next to Jack. He stared up at the ceiling, and thought. 

He didn't have any reason to be afraid or nervous, and he'd just have to resolve to remember that. He'd never been in danger, even when others had. It was the future that scared him, the way it stretched out, bereft of plan or purpose. David might well live to be ninety years old, but that didn't mean that he'd ever get back what he'd lost. His family was gone, and that was something he was going to have to face every single day, and no amount of telling himself that his friends faced the exact same things as he did was helping him yet. It just made him feel worse for being too inadequate to drag himself onwards the way they all had.

"What are you thinking?" Jack asked.

"That I need to do something."

"Yeah?"

David nodded.

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet."

"You got time to figure it out," Jack promised.

\-----

The rain hadn't let up by eleven that night. In fact, it had gotten worse. It had gone from being a light drizzle to being the kind of cold downpour that washed the autumn leaves off the trees, leaving them naked and ready for winter. 

Jack stood next to Blink out behind the lodging house, trying to shield his cigarette from the wind. He'd tried to light up inside, but Snitch had, in his high and mighty Snitch way, pointed out that Jack of all people should be on the look out for fire hazards. David had been fast asleep, luckily, pale and exhausted from the events earlier that day.

"We'd be a lot warmer if we gave these up," Blink said.

"Yeah, but we'd be miserable."

"We'd never have any fun." Blink puffed out his cheeks like he was trying to make smoke rings, but the air was too heavy and damp for anything like that, so his demonstration of what fun looked like ended up a failure. "Or, I guess we'd have plenty of fun, but we'd be angry while we did it. Least I would be."

Jack didn't think he'd be angry. He thought he'd be nervous, more likely. Jumpy. It gave him an idea. He could get David to give smoking a try, maybe. He wasn't sure if it was a good plan, though. David had never seemed to like it before, and he'd just about had a conniption when Les had expressed a desire to take it up.

"Hey Blink," Jack said. "Say you wasn't feeling so great. Like you had a stomachache. What'd you do then?"

"How bad of one?"

"Pretty bad."

Blink paused to think it over, " Long as I could stand, I'd sell papes. Not much else to do for the likes of us."

Jack nodded. He'd do the same thing. He'd even sold papers while puking before. He hadn't been able to charm his buyers, but he'd made up enough cash for his lodging. He drew the line at the kind of stomachache that came out the other end, but he figured he would've noticed if that was what was going on with David. 

"What about if Mush had a stomachache. What'd you do then?"

"Help him sell papes. I'd carry more of 'em, if he needed. If he was really sick, like throwing up or something, I could just sell the papers myself and pay for his bed. It'd be okay. Mush and me, we got our arrangement. We take good care of each other. Why? Dave got a stomachache?"

"How'm I supposed to know? It ain't my stomach."

Blink took a long drag on his cigarette. "Davey's doing good for a new kid. Better than me, when I first turned up."

Jack didn't bother to ask what Blink he'd been like. He'd heard bits and pieces of it here and there, enough to know that Blink hid the little kid he'd been back when he'd first started out selling newspapers somewhere deep within him, too embarrassed to let him out or to say much about it. That was true for a lot of people. Like Tumbler. Jack was willing to bet that once Tumbler grew up, he wouldn't want to talk about hoarding food or choosing a new Christian name every couple of weeks because he didn't know what name he'd been born with. That was just Tumbler now, and Tumbler at sixteen or twenty would be a different person. Changing and toughening up was just part of being a newsie. Leaving old identities behind was part of being a newsie too. Everybody did it to some degree, and everyone felt the pain of it to some degree too. Some ended their stint selling papers a completely different person than when they'd began. 

"Guess I wasn't thinking of David as being new," Jack admitted.

"Well he is. Nobody ends up where we is due to happy circumstances. He'll get used to things. It's a fine life and all, but it takes getting used to."

 

\----END


End file.
